In August of 1918, the U.S. suggested that the Japanese
send their four Kongo Class
battlecruisers to help escort American troop convoys across the Atlantic, a proposal that was very politely turned down.

Fray Nicholas Eymerich, a fourteenth century Dominican
who composed the Directorium
Inquisitorum, the first manual for interrogators, to help
Inquisitors ferret out witches and heretics, noted that "torture is
deceptive and ineffectual," as a method of reaching the truth, since
people were likely to say anything to stop the pain.

During their campaign to conquer Madagascar in
1895, the French lost 25 men to combat and about 6,000 to disease.

Having risen to corporal of Bersgalieri during World War I, on April 2, 1938, Benito Mussolini
was promoted to "Marshal of the Empire," a rank which he shared with
King Victor Emanuel III.

British archivists cataloged documents captured from
the Third Reich at the end of World War II using a code beginning with the
letters "PG," rumored to signify "Pinched from the
Germans."

Finding himself in a tight spot while campaigning
against the Scythians in 513 BC, King Darius I of Persia retreated under cover of
darkness, leaving behind his army’s many dogs and asses, which, by their
barking and braying convinced the enemy that he was still in his camp.

The armor provided Joan of Arc in 1429 cost 100 livres tournois, rather more than what a
normal set would have cost for a high nobleman, apparently because some of the
pieces had to be specially tailored to fit a 17 year old girl.

During the Seven Years’ War, it seems likely that at
some 45 percent of all recruits for the Royal Navy were actually "enlisted"
involuntarily by the press gang.

Inter-service relations between the French Army and the
French Navy probably reached their nadir at a cabinet meeting during the final
days of peace in 1914, when War Minister Adolphe Messimy attempted to strangle Minister of
Marine Armand Gauthier
de l'Aude.

In early 1860, learning that Giuseppe Garibaldi was
not-so-secretly organizing an expedition to liberate Sicily, Samuel Colt sent him 100 of his
famous pistols.